THE DEATH FREAK -- An Eddie Mancuso Thriller (Eddie Mancuso And Vasily Borgneff Book 1)

by Clifford Irving

  The Sunday passed uneventfully, just as dozens of others had passed for them. The only change in routine was the protective coverage; but the men were good at their job and Helen never noticed them. Rakow, of course, did, noting the neat bracket they provided on the drive down the Interstate. Once within the Ba­varian Village, the coverage split up, the leader heading for the kitchen to check out the food, the others taking up defensive positions at tables, on the mall, and in the shops. Rakow glanced inside the cafe to where the lead agent stood by a window. The agent gave him an imperceptible nod to indicate that the food and beer had been checked and were safe. Rakow relaxed, stretched out his legs, pushed back the brim of his hat, and or­dered from the waiter. When the food came, he and Helen ate voraciously, bending over their plates and shoveling in thick slices of sausage. Terry pushed his Weisswurst around with his fork and then, as he did every Sunday, asked for a dollar.

  "I can't eat this, Uncle John, really I can't," the boy com­plained. "Hot dogs aren't white. I want a real hot dog."

  Rakow gave him the money and watched as he ran across the green to the mobile hot dog stand, pleased to see an agent peel off and follow the boy. He divided the uneaten Weisswurst with Helen and they finished it together, smiling at each other content­edly and delicately dabbing grease from their lips.

  "I got to go on a diet," said Helen, sighing. "If it isn't the beer, it's the food."

  "I got no complaints. I like a woman I can grab ahold of."

  Helen looked down at herself complacently. "Well, there's plenty to grab, all right, but ten pounds more and you wouldn't be so happy."

  "Ten pounds is nothing. I can work ten pounds off you any­time."

  "Hey, what do you think I am, some kind of a horse?"

  "Yeah, my kind of a horse. A filly."

  "Some filly," she said, but she was pleased.

  The rest of the afternoon passed quietly, with only three minor incidents to mar the routine. The first was when a crowd of Wil­liam and Mary students came roaring through the Bavarian Vil­lage waving full beer steins and singing, incongruously, "The South Will Rise Again." They weren't drunk, just high-spirited and boisterous, but their path led them close to Rakow's table. The cover reacted smoothly, three agents wandering over to place themselves casually between the students and the table, and the other three joining the crowd, jostling, stumbling clum­sily, and finally funneling the boys around the corner and out of the way. Rakow nodded his approval.

  The second incident came when a tourist set off a cannon cracker on the green. Helen started at the loud noise, as did most of the other people in the cafe. Rakow did not move, nor did any of the agents. They knew the difference between a cannon cracker and an explosive device. Properly trained, they were not distracted. Five of them kept their eyes on their subject, while the sixth went off to check the origin of the sound. He returned within minutes and gave the all-clear sign. Rakow nodded ap­provingly again.

  The third incident occurred late that afternoon as they were leaving the Bavarian Village, Rakow and Helen contentedly weary, Terry still burning energy wildly. An old man selling bal­loons was posted at the gate. With his white mustaches drooping and his Lederhosen shiny with wear, the old man was as German as the sausage and the beer. He had only half a dozen balloons left on his strings, and as Rakow passed by he thrust one out hopefully. Terry was instantly alert.

  "Can I have one, Uncle John? Can I have one?"

  Rakow nodded, and gave the old man a dollar. The old man handed the balloon to the boy. As he did this, three things hap­pened in quick succession.

  One of the covering agents, walking close by, stumbled and fell. He fell against the boy and knocked the balloon from his hand. It drifted free.

  A second agent yelled, "I've got it," and grabbed the string.

  A third agent, walking in the opposite direction, brushed against the balloon with a lit cigarette. The balloon exploded with a harmless pop.

  Terry looked up with a stricken face. Rakow nodded approv­ingly, and said to the old man, "Give the kid another balloon."

  The old man said anxiously, "You pay,ja?"

  Rakow exchanged a dollar for the second balloon, and gave it to the boy. The agent with the cigarette was full of apologies. Rakow waved them aside. "Accidents happen," he said, and let one eyelid droop in the slightest of winks.

  Sunday evening went as uneventfully as the day had. By eight o'clock Terry was asleep in bed, and Rakow and Helen were happily placed in front of the television set, well supplied with beer and pretzels. At ten o'clock, Helen flipped through the TV Guide and asked, "Do you want to watch the movie? It's Robert Redford."

  "Not much. Come on over here."

  "Honey, it's still early," she said reproachfully.

  He reached over and grabbed a handful of the flesh around her hips. "See what I mean? I like girls with handles."

  "Hey, you lug, that hurts," she said, but she came to him willingly.

  Terry slept soundly in the bedroom upstairs. His toys were piled in heaps on the floor, and a night-light glowed on the bedside table. The bathroom door was open to admit even more light, and the hallway door was open, too. The new balloon was tied to the back of a chair.

  Just after ten o'clock the balloon began to deflate, slowly and silently. The deflation took nearly twenty minutes. During that time the VX gas spread gently through the bedroom, reaching the boy quickly. He died in his sleep, knowing nothing.

  The colorless, odorless gas moved through the house, out the bedroom door, and down the narrow staircase. By the time it reached the living room, Helen and Rakow were hard at work on the couch—she a bouncing mound of soft white flesh, and he wearing only his undershirt and thick wool socks. Their breath­ing, already labored from exertion, now came in gasps. Rakow shook his head as if to clear it.

  "Don't stop," Helen urged him. "Don't stop now."

  "Long day," he muttered. "Too much beer."

  "Getting old, that's what." She heaved herself up, bucking against him.

  "No, not that." He knew it wasn't that, although he was never to know what it was. Still braced between her thighs, he rested his head on her shoulder, and died.

  Helen survived him by seconds. She felt him spurt within her as his muscles relaxed in death, and for a flash of time she was furious that he had come before her. The fury was her last emo­tion, and then she was gone as well.

  Up in Terry's bedroom, the deflated balloon lay limply on the floor. At ten-thirty the rubber began to contract on itself, and within five minutes had formed itself into the shape and size of a peanut. When it reached that size, it exploded in a flash of green flame. The balloon and string vanished; the fire crept across the carpeted floor.

  It was almost an hour later when the agents deployed around the house saw the flames come shooting out of the lower win­dows. Again they acted smoothly, three men running for the building, two men breaking away to cover the grounds, and the last man patching in the radio to the Williamsburg Fire Depart­ment. They acted as they had been trained to act, with speed and precision; but by that time there was nothing at all left for them to do.

  13

  What about Igor Durin?

  Eddie, the best way I can describe Durin is to compare him with Suvarov. The two of them are opposite faces of the Russian personality. Suvarov is a traditionalist who is madly in love with two females, his wife and Mother Russia. Igor Gregorivich Durin, on the other hand, is a modernist who is in love with nobody, but who has a wild infatuation with the products of West­ern technology. Bench-made shoes, Cardin shirts, things like that. He even drives a new Mercedes.

  How does he get away with that?

  No difficulty. Brezhnev himself has a stable that includes a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, a Cadillac, and a Lincoln. What's good enough for Leonid Ilyich is certainly good enough for Igor Gregorivich.

  Likes to drive, huh? Fast?

  He is noted for it. Yes, I see what you mean. You might be able to use your po
p-off wheel, but how would you get it into the country?

  I might be able to rig one once I get there. Tell me more about Prince Igor. It sounds like he enjoys the good life.

  According to the stories, his private life is quite lavish. He's supposed to have a little pied-a-terre tucked away somewhere in one of the old quarters of Moscow.

  Any idea where?

  Sorry. All I know is that it's extravagantly furnished with all the modern accessories, things that the average Russian only dreams of. An English refrigerator, a freezer chest from West Germany, a French color television set, an American microwave oven, and a stereo rig beyond description. That's about all I can tell you.

  You're doing fine. About the stereo . . . what kind of music does he dig?

  Jazz, American jazz. Durin is reputed to have the finest, most extensive black-market collection of jazz in the Soviet Union.

  Bingo. Look, how does this sound? I bring in maybe two dozen discs, most of them straight, but three or four I'll have rigged . . .

  What were you thinking of using?

  Something simple. A variation of the potassium chlorate com­pound cut with Vaseline. I rub it into the grooves of the record very fine, can't be spotted . . .

  Will it have enough of a kick?

  Kick? You got any idea how many hundreds of feet of grooves there are in a long-playing record? It should be enough to take out a small room.

  Detonation?

  The needle, buddy. Once the record starts spinning, the friction heat takes over, and then . . . ka-BOOM.

  Yes. Yes, I see. . . . You know, Eddie, I've been in this busi­ness for over twenty years. But there are still times when you frighten me.

  Igor Durin knew. At the precise moment that Colonel Fist struck him in the face, he knew how Suvarov had died and who had killed him. It was as if the blow had jarred his mind, had rattled his brain free of preconceived notions, and had opened him up to receive a shaft of startling insight. The process was not deductive—two and two did not suddenly make four—but rather an intuitive leap to an inescapable conclusion. The leap did not provide him with details. Names, places, and motives remained to be filled in. But in that moment of insight he was morally certain of two things.

  The computer was right. Vasily Borgneff was not in Moscow.

  The computer had been incorrectly programmed. Someone else was doing the killing for him.

  The fact that he had been publicly struck by his commanding officer did not offend him. He was a member of a harsh service, and had himself struck subordinates in moments of rage. He ig­nored the amused glances of the other officers in the hall, ignoring as well the almost sympathetic look that Major Marchenko sent his way. He signaled for his junior lieutenant to carry on with the ceremony, and then beckoned for his duty sergeant to join him. He drew the sergeant away from the others and gave him a de­scription of Wolf, the music man.

  "You can find him where the black-market people hang out on the Sadovo Ring Road," he told the sergeant. "He's always there. Bring him in."

  "To Zhukovka, sir?"

  Durin hesitated. On the one hand, if what he had in mind was true, then Colonel Fist should be told at once. On the other hand, should his theory be inaccurate (he could not bring himself to say wrong), then he had no desire to look like a fool. There was also a third hand: the hand that had struck him. Although he was not personally offended by the blow, he knew that his professional reputation had suffered badly, and what better way to recoup the loss than to prove his point single-handed? To interrogate Wolf at the dacha would mean bringing the colonel into the action, and he was not quite ready for that yet. A far better place would be Lubyanka Prison, where he could work privately, yet officially. With that in mind, he said to the sergeant:

  "Not Zhukovka. Bring him to Dzerzhinsky Street. Put him in an interrogation room and hold him there." He looked around him, at the disappearing funeral cortege, at Suvarov's body still lying on the floor, at the uniformed troops awaiting his orders. "Hold him. I'll be over as soon as I get this mess cleaned up."

  The mess took several hours to organize, and it was not until late in the evening that Durin finally sat facing Wolf the music man across a desk in a basement room in Lubyanka. The boy was nervous. He had been picked up, brought in, and kept wait­ing for hours without knowing why. Now he squirmed in his chair and he could not keep his hands still. His eyes darted round the bare-walled room, and his forehead was damp.

  Well and good, thought Durin. He has every right to be ner­vous. Guilty or innocent, an invitation to Lubyanka unhinges them all.

  He went directly to the point. "This man who has records to sell. Tell me about him."

  Relief showed on Wolfs face. His imagination had conjured up darker deeds for which he might be questioned. "The American? What do you want to know?"

  "Specifics. Weight, height, appearance. All you can tell me."

  "He's short, maybe one meter seventy; couldn't weigh more than sixty-five kilos, seventy tops. Has a sort of swarthy skin, you know, like a zhid, except that I don't think he is. I can always tell a zhid. No, this is a Mediterranean type. Greek or Italian, or something like that."

  Durin nodded his approval. "Now, I want you to tell me ex­actly, and I mean exactly, the conversation that took place be­tween the two of you."

  The accounting took longer than the description. Words, and the memory of them, were difficult for Wolf. Had he been asked to quote a specific riff from a Beiderbecke solo, he could have done so with ease, but words were a problem. Frowning with the strain of recollection, he gave the best account of the conversa­tion that he could, prompted along by Durin's searching ques­tions.

  When he had finished, Durin again nodded with approval. "Not bad, Wolf, not bad. But not terribly good, either."

  "It's all I can tell you, Comrade Captain."

  "I doubt it."

  "Look, sir, I don't know what this is all about, but you know how it is with me. I'm always willing to help if I can, but I've told you all I know. After all, it's just a question of a couple of records."

  "Illegal records. Black-market records. There are laws about that, you know."

  "Excuse me, Comrade Captain, but I have broken those same laws for you several times in the past."

  Durin did not comment. He stared coldly at the young man, and Wolfs familiar attitude shriveled. He knew that he had gone over the line. He gripped the arms of the chair and waited. When Durin finally spoke, it was in a sharper voice.

  "He's asking two hundred dollars each for these discs. Doesn't that seem high to you?"

  "A bit," Wolf said cautiously. "But after all, they are collec­tor's items. I doubt if you'd find a single one in Moscow. Tapes, yes, but not the original records."

  "Still, two hundred, and in dollars. It seems very high. After all, how many collectors are there, big collectors, who could raise that much in dollars?"

  "Very few."

  "Less than that, I'd say. If you asked my opinion, I'd have to guess that there is only one collector in Moscow who could do it. Me."

  "That's why I came to you, Comrade Captain."

  "Indeed you did. And did it never occur to you that your Mr. Morrison intended you to do exactly that?"

  Expressions flashed across Wolfs face: shock and disbelief, followed finally by fear. "Comrade Captain, I don't know what to say. ..."

  "Then say nothing. I think it is almost certain that your Mr. Morrison is a foreign agent. I am equally certain that he is using you to get to me. What I don't know is why. I was hoping you could tell me."

  "I've told you everything I know. Everything. I swear it."

  "Quite possibly," said Durin, and his voice turned soft, almost tender. "But you see, Wolf ... I have to be sure."

  The boy stared at him, frozen in fear.

  "Perhaps Mr. Morrison is using you. I hope so. On the other hand, perhaps you are working with him. I hope not. But either way, I have to know. And there is only one way I can know with certainty."


  Durin pressed the buzzer on his desk. The duty sergeant en­tered, and stood to attention. Durin said to Wolf, "I'm sorry about this," and he sounded truly sad.

  To the sergeant he said only, "Take a team and break him."

  The breaking of Wolf the music man took most of the night.

  Not that he had anything to tell, and not that he resisted the telling. After an hour of severe and intensive interrogation it was apparent that he was hiding nothing, but Durin had to be sure. He ordered the interrogation to be continued and went out for a late supper.

  When he returned, he bypassed the interrogation room and went directly to Files Section. There, while his team was method­ically taking Wolf apart by the nerve ends, he called for the files on the O Group at Williamsburg. He compared the description that Wolf had given him with those of the five O Group members. None of them fitted. He then matched the description against those of former members of the Group, with no results. He moved on to the Langley echelon, with no success. He continued the search, checking every known active agent in the American service who might be capable of organizing the Suvarov job. At the end of the search, he was convinced that the man he was looking for either was not an American, or was not a professional.

  "An amateur? Is it possible?" he mused, and in that moment the answer fell into place. "No, not an amateur, a professional. But a professional designer, not a professional agent."

  He called for the file on Eddie Mancuso, and studied it care­fully. When he had finished, he was convinced that Mancuso was the man at the Hotel Rossiya. What he could not understand was why the American was working with Borgneff, but that knowl­edge, he was sure, would come in time. What mattered now was that he had his man. Again he thought briefly of informing Colo­nel Fist, but the thought was never a serious one. Mancuso had a lot to answer for, not the least of which was the public humiliation of Igor Durin.

  He went back to the interrogation room to see what was left of Wolf the music man. The boy was unconscious, barely breathing. Most of his teeth were gone, and all of his fingernails. Blood ran from every natural orifice in his body and some that were newly created.